… Kris Wehrmeister …

God of stairs

(FREE STUFF – HUMOR)

Jack the smaller badly behaved dog wakes me up at 4:00 AM the other day, because contrary to all available no-chance-is-it-anything-other-than-the-middle-of-the-night evidence, he thinks perhaps it could be breakfast-time. I know from long experience that once he starts barking, he barks until something happens to reward his barking because he is Satan. I lie there, comfy in bed, staring into the darkness, cursing the smaller badly behaved dog as he calls for me.

Bark bark bark bark . . .

Mark sleeps peacefully through the dog’s barking and my annoyance. Mark does not do middle-of-the-night stuff. Over the years, he has compromised on many things, but on this topic he has not budged. We have two children, long out of diapers, who, as far as Mark knows, have always been the soundest of sleepers and have never needed a middle-of-the-night diaper change or feeding or comforting … ever.

It is good to be Mark.

I listen to the dog, hoping against all odds that he will notice the darkness into which he is squalling and go back to sleep.

Bark bark bark bark . . .

Sigh.

Without turning on a light, I roll out of bed and bend to rummage through the pile of clothing, pillows, towels, and assorted other Kris-belongings that I keep in a jumbled heap alongside the bed. If you ask him, Mark will express annoyance about the fact that I keep things piled over here, but if you ask him and he expresses annoyance? Ask him why he has six shelves in our walk-in closet and I have zero. Ask him why he has an entire closet cupboard (with additional glass-doored shelving!) and I have a large plastic box that sits on the floor. Ask him why he has not one but two windows on his side of the closet, while I get dressed as I stare through a small vertical gap in the wall into a room the girls use as a computer/study area.

It is good to be Mark.

Bark bark bark bark . . .

Stupid dog.

I can’t find my robe in the darkness, so wrapped in a towel, I walk downstairs and through the kitchen to the laundry room in which the dogs sleep. I open the laundry-room door, and Jack the smaller badly behaved dog bounds out joyfully, his whole body wriggling with the joy that comes from the belief that one has successfully pulled breakfast out of thin dark air. Persie the well-behaved Labrador follows Jack out into the moonlit kitchen, looking up at me apologetically. I reach to pat the Labrador’s head. “I know, girl. Jack is insane. Guess what, though? I am not feeding him breakfast. It’s not time for breakfast. You guys can run around the back yard and go potty and then it’s back to bed for a few more hours.”

I walk to the sliding-glass door on the other side of the kitchen and pull it open. Jack runs out into the back yard, and as I stare out into the yard and watch him pee, I realize I have to pee as well. I take a few steps toward the stairs that go to the basement, figuring I will just leave the door to the back yard open while I use the basement bathroom, and by the time I return, both dogs will be ready to go back to bed, albeit one of them muzzled into submission. I wave an impatient arm at the Labrador to indicate that she should go out into the yard — “Come on, girl!” — and I start down the stairs.

About halfway down the stairs, I realize that the well-behaved Labrador has understood my command to be a request that she follow me into the basement. I spin the upper half of my body around, waving my hand at her. “No. Go outside! Don’t come down here, silly dog. Go outside!” I stand awkwardly, glaring at the dog, grabbing my towel around myself as I gesture again. “Go!”

Persie looks at me sadly and then starts backing up the stairs, choosing to maintain eye contact through her entire retreat, apologizing for the misunderstanding with every fiber of her being. I sigh. “Awww, come on. I didn’t mean for you to follow me. Stop looking at me like that. Don’t be sad. Come on.”

And so then, of course, in a state of complete nervous confusion, the Labrador starts creeping back down the stairs.

Too stupid to realize what I am saying, I make the same mistake again. “No! Go outside! Come on, you stupid dog!”

And so she continues to endeavor to “Come on,” cringing down the stairs toward me as though her legs have been somehow retracted … a giant fat brown sea lion of apologetic Lab.

Still standing awkwardly, half-turned on the stairs, clutching my towel around my body, aware of a growing urine urgency, I point angrily up the stairs and past her body. “GO OUTSIDE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? GO OUTSIDE!”

At which point, Persie turns and flees in terror and I turn and fall down the remainder of the stairs.

Bumpity bump bump thud thud … bump.

Which hurts quite a bit.

I land in a naked ungraceful heap at the bottom of the stairs, but not before managing to do some impressive and incredibly painful tumbling.

Damn it.

Ow.

Alright … so let’s see what we’ve got …

One tangled nude rag-dolled body.

One incredibly painful ass/hip bashing on the left side.

One painfully twisted right knee.

One painfully jolted left wrist which may even be … yup … bleeding.

One complete loss of dignity.

And one loss of urine, most (but not all) captured in the towel, which is crumpled beneath me.

Well that’s just fucking great.

Everything hurts, I am bleeding, and I have pissed myself.

I AM GOD OF STAIRS!

Sigh.

Limping and whimpering and cursing, I get myself cleaned up and bandaged. I discover that my stupid children have used all of the normal-sized Band-Aids, and so I am forced to wrap a huge swath of insanely-sized Band-Aid around my left wrist to staunch the blood and cover the injury, which is nowhere near as bad as the enormous suicide-bandaging now makes it appear to be. Also? FUCK, my hip hurts and FUCK my knee hurts and FUCK my wrist hurts and also I am nude and I hate my smaller dog.

Smaller dog is muzzled. Larger dog is patted and reassured, because she is concerned that I have turned into a lurching naked-zombie monster of some sort and she is pretty sure she read somewhere that naked-zombie monsters eat Labradors. I return both dogs to the laundry room, and I head upstairs to our bedroom.

Where Mark is sleeping.

It is good to be Mark.

I crawl painfully into bed (since when is our bed so high?), and I lie in the darkness and feel sorry for myself. I maybe cry a little bit, because the situation seems to merit tears and also because it wouldn’t kill Mark to notice his wife is crying and injured. I cry a little louder, perhaps let out a little dramatic moan. Mark turns in the darkness. “You OK?”

I snuffle. “No. I hurt myself.”

“Night.”

And he goes back to sleep.

It is good to be Mark.

OK, and here is where the story might end except it does not …

Two nights later, I am unable to sleep. I am rarely able to sleep when I want to sleep, so this is no big surprise, but on this particular evening, my left hip is bothering me. I can’t seem to get comfortable, and after tossing and turning for a bit, I decide to head down into the basement and watch TV for a bit.

I get as comfy as possible on the couch and watch an old episode of something or other, and I drift off to sleep.

Only to be awakened when I am somehow struck by lightning from within. WHAT THE FUCK WITH THE ELECTRICITY? That’s what it feels like … as though a bolt of electricity has been sent from my left hip down the length of my leg … a buzzing, searing, excruciating bolt of lightning.

Which hurts quite a bit.

Hurts as in … Well, I have enjoyed having two legs these many years, but clearly amputation is going to be required and so could somebody please wake up and bring me a hacksaw, please?

FUCK.

I take a deep breath and focus my thoughts and energy … I roll off of the couch and try to stand. My leg gives way with pain … a weird sort of pain, though, now that I have focused … it’s as though something is not where it is supposed to be … as though a bone or a nerve has shifted or been pinched. A jolting agonizing pain that even as it hisses down my leg hints at the possibility that relief is as simple as unpinching.

HOW DO I UNPINCH?

Ooooh … is this what people are talking about when they talk about pinched nerves?

Fuck fuck fuck fuck . . . I should have been more sympathetic when those people whined, because this hurts.

I manage to lurch and haul myself up two flights of stairs without using my left leg.

Maybe a hot bath will help.

No, it does not.

It just adds a sheen of sweat to the agony.

Plus, I almost kill myself getting in and then out of the bathtub.

Mark sleeps.

It is good to be Mark.

Alright, so I will go to bed. If I hold my leg slightly up and away from my body, it hurts … less. So probably there is a position in bed that will hurt … less … and then I will just go to sleep until this problem goes away.

I am brilliant when I am in extreme pain.

No doctors are required.

Because of the brilliance.

Anyway.

I make my way to my side of the bed, and I am confronted with a problem. Our bed is very high and I am a short person, and I generally have to climb into bed. Climbing with only one leg looks a lot like hopping impotently just adjacent to the thing you would like to scale, in case you were wondering.

Hop, hop, hop.

Damn it.

I throw my upper body across the bed and try to wiggle up into the bed, but I am too short and my leg hurts too much to wiggle and I just fall away.

I stand very close to the bed and try to leap forward like a sea lion onto the bed.

Like … a … sea … lion.

Lunge and fall away, lunge and fall away, lunge and fall away.

DAMN IT.

Mark sleeps.

It is good to be Mark.

I am exhausted and in agony. “Mark?”

He sleeps.

“MARK?”

“Yeah?”

“I hurt myself.”

“Yeah?”

“I need help getting into bed, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Mark, I need help.”

Silence.

I hate this man.

I pound on the bed. “Wake up. I need help.”

“Yeah?”

“Mark, I hurt my leg. I need help getting into bed.”

“So get into bed.”

“Babe, I need help.”

Silence.

I swear to god, after I get that hacksaw and cut off this leg, I am going to beat Mark to death with the bloody useless appendage.

I cry a little … because this is all just so stupid and it hurts so bad and I hate the smaller badly behaved dog and this is all his fault because if I hadn’t had to get up in the middle of the night I wouldn’t have fallen down the stairs and my hip wouldn’t have gotten hurt and whatever is now pinched wouldn’t be pinched and I would be ABLE TO GET IN MY BED and also I hate Mark I do I hate him hate him hate him and I would so walk away in this moment I would walk away from 26 years together except I CANNOT FUCKING WALK.

“WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

“Kris, you OK?”

Sniffle. “No.”

“Why are you standing there? Get in bed.”

“I can’t get in bed. I hurt myself.”

“You need some help?”

“No, don’t be silly. Why would you think that?”

And then? Thusly reassured?

HE WENT BACK TO SLEEP.

My sarcastic answer to snoring in .5 seconds.

It is good to be Mark.

Alright, I will just sleep on the floor, husband of mine.

But in the morning, when you come down off of that bed?

Oh, it’s ON.

Wait! Maybe I could use this pile of clothing and towels and pillows to build myself a step! I lean awkwardly and one-leggedly down beside the bed and gather what I find there into a smallish mountain. I swing my injured leg out and wide and then down into the pile and then, gritting my teeth against the pain, I manage to swing my good leg up into the bed.

VICTORY!

My leg buzzes and hisses and jolts, but I finally manage to find a position in which it hurts … less. I will just lie here until morning, and everything will be OK.

Everything will be OK as long as I don’t have to pee.

I turn my head to look at the clock, which reads 4:00 AM.

Alright, so I just have to go maybe three hours without having to pee.